


Katabasis

by Kafkaesque (Steviacookies)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dark!Will vs GoodGuy!Will, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Smut, Everything you shouldn't like, Gore, Hallucinations, M/M, Murder, Sleepmurdering, Sleepwalking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:19:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steviacookies/pseuds/Kafkaesque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's hallucinations get worse and worse.<br/>One day, he wakes up covered in blood. Someone else's blood. Luckily, Doctor Lecter is there to help him deal with the situation. From there to Hell, the way is not long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> One meaning of katabasis is the epic convention of the hero's trip into the underworld; katabasis is as well "in modern psychology, the term used to describe the depression some young men experience".

 

 

When you open your eyes, you find them already opened.

The first thing you feel is the cold wave of something you can't remember on your skin, the shadow of something you should be seeing embedded in the blurred halo of your peripheral vision. _Something important_ , the blood pounds in your ears, _calm down._

It is essential, a doctor – what doctor? _Breathe, breathe_ ; the sight of a man in suit and tie – told you once, to immediately try to recover your identity. Who are you?

It's too soon, though; first you have to find something real. 

The air is cold, but burns your feet; your hands are wet, but it isn't raining. The wind scratches your dry cheeks and cracked lips. There is pain, somewhere, down to your legs, but endorphins are throbbing through your blood and you can still believe that maybe it's nothing, after all. 

_Something real._

You think about dogs. A dog. A lot of dogs. They bark and they are your family. A house that is a lantern in the darkness and a boat lost at sea. A woman with blue eyes. She talks to you and you wish she could love you; “Will”, she called you.

“Will,” someone calls you, not that woman, not that day, but _right now._

It's a voice you have already heard, that sounds like cold places and barren earth– there's a hand on you shoulder, but not in the past, not in your memories.

Now.

_Something real._

The touch doesn't feel foreign; actually, there's something familiar, something that makes you feel safe in the way these long fingers cling to your shoulder – _that trembles_ , you notice with a detached calm, _I am trembling_ – .

“Will, look at me. Do you know who I am?” 

You lift your eyes, but your retinas are unable to catch any image at all. Your gaze simply hovers on objects and colors without managing to actually see them; your attention is trapped in a condensation drop on your brow and this doesn't make any sense. 

But the voice is asking you, and so you lift your eyes.

You try hard, because you really need to see something– 

_Someone real._

A face. That opens a mouth and moves lips. And a voice. It takes you a second to link that voice to the face.

“I am Hannibal Lecter, your psychiatrist.”

Black eyes – meeting them should be bothering you, you hate eyes; not these eyes, though, but you don't remember – are staring at you, but you don't know what they are seeing.

_I feel just fine_ , you'd like to say, _never been better_. It wouldn't be an absolute lie, as there is this strange and hot joy burning in your chest and this impossible need to laugh and laugh until you loose your voice. And yet, something tells you it would be wrong. Everything would be wrong.

If you could just– 

“Will, focus on me, please. You are William Graham, you work as a profiler for the FBI.”

So. A lot of dogs; a house that seems to breathe lights amidst the fog; Will Graham.

Your concentration starts narrowing its focus, sketching the first lines of what you think may be reality.

“You live in Wolf Trap with your dogs,” the voice goes on, “and, in this moment, we are on a road about one kilometer from your house.”

A face with black eyes and a thick accent, a familiar face, a face– 

 

“Can you remember, Will?”

 

A moment you know nothing and you are just a thought lost in the wind and then, and then- you know everything and it hurts and you scream. A scream so deep that it could overwhelm you, could rip every bit of residual humanity from your bones. 

The air is freezing in your lungs and it cannot repress the rising nausea; you try to shut your mouth, pressing your hands on it, your hands-

Your hands are wet with blood.

Panic swells in your chest and explodes, tears you apart; your heart is slamming against the back of your throat and you wish you could just throw it up, yes; spit it out in a bloody mess of pulsating arteries, watch it slowly die like a red sobbing monster on the concrete.

Doctor Lecter's hot hands are holding you pressed against his wool jacket, but it's not enough for you to forget the metallic taste of the blood painted on your lips.

'Trembling' isn't even the right word anymore; you are vibrating, every fiber of your body, like a violin string that cries a last, shrill note before snapping.

“Quiet. Everything is going to be fine.”

You'd like to laugh, but you are still screaming – your mouth doesn't make a sound but it is still open in a cruel spasm of muscles – and you are not going to stop.

You'd like to laugh, but behind you there is a corpse watching the night sky, a corpse with black, bottomless sockets where the eyes you carved out were; so you decide to throw up, and throw up, against Doctor Lecter's chest, until you feel there's nothing left inside you, you, the empty shell still trapped.

Memories from the past hours threaten you to resurface, but you can't, _you can't,_ it's too much.

Your mind quivers like sails whipped by a storm; the only way to achieve some relief would be to let yourself go down, to shipwreck with all your might and die crushed by a blue, abyssal pressure.

_Sweat and blood and cold, everywhere; the last struggle and death, with a white smile and black orbits; and laughing and laughing, so good, a longing so piercing that has left you empty and alone with the burning desire to do it again, to have some more–_

Under your nails, slimy fragments of dead skin.

_No no no no no._

“This won't do, Will.”

 

The last thing you feel is a thin pain slipping under the skin of your shoulder; a warm liquid starts running throughout your vessels and your mouth, finally, closes.

“Let me take care of everything.”

And then you can return and peacefully drown in the starless Paradise where you are allowed to forget your name.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know my English is arrrrghh. I know. I'm un-beta'ed and not a native speaker- these are my official justifications, eh. Hope Hannibal won't find it rude, though.  
> This will be quite long, I think. This is just kinda prologue-ish.


	2. Hypnos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal's ready to put Will's pieces together, not necessarily as they were before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you sooo much for the lovely comments! I didn't honestly exepected people to be so nice, this surely was a big stimulus to keep me writing! <3
> 
> The title of this chapter comes from Greek mythology: "Hypnos (Ancient Greek: Ὕπνος, "sleep") was the personification of sleep; the Roman equivalent was known as Somnus. His twin was Thánatos (Θάνατος, "death"); their mother was the primordial goddess Nyx (Νύξ, "night")".

 

  _In your dreams, the world is a gray forest; trees of smoke and branches that shift to let you proceed in yet more darkness._

_You are noiselessly running on a carpet of dead leaves, you are alone and you are a king. Fear, the unseeing monster, bow down to you crumbling in a heap of dusty bones._

_You are the stag, the antlers of mist. Proud of the tracks you left in the dirt, proud of the lifeless, cold body you boast impaled on your horns-_

 

With the sob of a drowned man you jerk up, your eyes opened wide.

At first what you are seeing doesn't make any sense; your brain tries to re-elaborate the incoming images but it can find just shades of black and shapeless lines. The sweat is like ice in your hair and has made the sheet sticks to your back like a second, wet skin. You are lying in your bed, you eventually realize, the ceiling you are staring panting is the same as usual.

_I'm at home. I am Will Graham and I am at home._

There are no stags, no screams, no white corpses with hopeless pits instead of eyes.

You quietly laugh – cautiously –.

_Nightmares, just the same, usual nightmares._

Your hands are pale, they smell of soap and absolutely not of vomit.

Wolf Trap, your bedroom, your freezing but clean hands: _this is reality._

The inside of your throat feels swollen and hot, a fever is burning in the wetness of your eyes, but you don't mind, not at all. You feel perfectly fine, because you have dreamt _everything_. During the night, you can break yourself to delirium, but there's always the morning to put the pieces back together. The fear that was threatening to devour you in your dreams feels almost comforting now, almost ridiculous compared to the other option you won't think about– you don't want to, because there is no need to worry, isn't it? _Only a dream, a dream, a dream_ , you're repeating in your head like a mantra to wash away that sense of disgust that cling to your body like sweat – that feeling of slimy, dead skin under your nails – .

_Everything is fine._

When you lift you sheet up, though, you realize that everything is certainly _not_ quite fine.

In the dim light of the room, you can clearly see a bandage tightly wrapped around your calf: there must be an ugly wound, it burns like hell now that you think about it. For some, blessed seconds, though, the bandage stays a bandage in your eyes. But something twitches, shifts, something is shattered – _how did I get it?_ – , and a barricade in your mind collapses. First you are looking at the bandage with the thoughtful expression of someone watching a faded picture– and a blink later you are throwing up bile like you'd never stopped, like you could still feel the coarseness of the concrete scratching your hand red.

_The smell of victory and blood, the arctic gasp of a corpse, black chasms. It's still moving, it wants to live, but it shouldn't and stopping it is so easy. It's me, it's always been me; the laughter and the monster-_

You are still there, somehow, pressed against a gelid body and screaming and crying, and you are also here, maybe, coughing through a burning throat on the floor.

_No, it was only a dream, please, a dream, only-_

You just want it to end, but it's bigger than you and you can't stop it, you can't stop your body from contracting and breaking in a cruel dance of convulsions.

“Will, listen to me: focus on your breath.”

The door is opened and the lights turned on before you are aware of it, and now everything is warm and two arms lift you back on the bed.

_You tear out the eyes because they are screaming and you hate eyes, you dig them up with your nails-_

“Breathe.”

You attach yourself to these syllables like to a lifeline; you breathe, repress the gag reflex, and breathe some more, push down the air with all your willpower.

“Like this: breathe.”

A hand is steadily stroking your back, rubbing your spine as if trying to stop it from crumbling away under the pressure. You exhale and shut your exhausted eyes, hiding yourself into the darkness behind your eyelids. The hand soothes you, in the same way you usually appease stray, trembling dogs – you are a trembling dog right now – ; your chest doesn't rumble with the thumps of your frenzied heart anymore – the laughter becomes a distant bell – .

_Breathe._

“Very good, Will,” the hand rewards you moving up to pet your tangled, sweaty hair.

 _It's Doctor Lecter,_ you suddenly remember.

Of course, it was him that took you back home – _but that was_ _in the dream; it has to be a coincidence,_ you want to believe it so badly it hurts – , it was him that bandaged your calf, him that held you tighter while you vomited against his wool jacket.

Surprised with a flash of awareness, you wonder whether he has already called the police– yes, he has, without a doubt.

In you mind, you can already see the scene: he will approach a policeman and say, with his charming features slightly tense with regret, “He is struggling with mental illness”, as if it were an answer to everything. And, in fact, _it will._ It will be enough for everyone; for the police, your students, Jack. For Alana.

You abruptly tear away from his arms and stare – not at his eyes; at his chin, where you won't find disappointment, or pity – at him like this was just his fault.

“It was a dream, right?” the raw taste of hysteria makes your voice quiver, “please, tell me it was only a dream.”

There is a hint of a sigh and then a silence that it's an answer of its own.

Your thorax expanses painfully and the wave of an incoming seizure numbs your sense.

“Will,” he finally says, his controlled voice the same as usual, “now I will go to the kitchen and make you some milk with honey; keep on focusing on your breath, will you?”

You don't have the time to think anything sensible – _your mind is chaos, broken glasses everywhere, concrete and night_ – that he is gone and he is back, in his hands a steamy mug he is offering you.

“Drink, please.”

The easiest option is to obey, even though your stomach is a knot of nerves.

“Can you tell me what you remember, Will?”

You don't answer for what feels like eternity: you quietly sip your milk, sweet and hot, and with it you try to heal your wounded memories. It seems to you that so much time has passed that, when you lift your eyes, you are sure you will find in the place of Doctor Lecter dust and bones and empty clothes. He is still there, though.

You are oddly calm now, your lips sticky with honey, and he is still there and watches you like he cares about you. Like a friend.

“Have you drugged my milk, doctor?”

“No,” you can hear a vague smile in his voice, “I would never do something like that,” there's a short pause, “just a mild anxiolytic.”

Yes, you can feel it overcloud the color of blood with a white curtain; red that becomes orange that becomes nothing. You can feel it move your gaze up to meet Doctor Lecter's eyes.

“I remember the joy,” you murmur after a while.

“Joy of killing him?” his voice is steady and unwavering.

It's the anxiolytic that stop you from trembling at these words – _“killing”, it's so real_ – , from wondering how Doctor Lecter can stay so unemotional in the same room with an unstable murderer, or asking yourself some sensible questions like “Where is the body?” and “Where are the police?”.

Actually, this feels just like one of those sessions in Doctor Lecter's study, with him sitting on the edge of his desk and you opening yourself apart under the weight of his questions.

“No. Of watching him die.”

For an instant, the psychiatrist’s eyes sparkle with a weird light; but then it fades away and you are sure it was just your drowsy imagination.

“Who were you, Will?” he asks seconds later, with the tone of one that already knows the answer but wants to hear it hovering in the air, “Were you Garret Jacob Hobbs, or another serial killer whose mind touched yours in the past– who were you?”

“I was myself,” no hesitation, “I remember the joy, it was my own. I remember hands. Mine. Bloody and shaking. I remember the laughter and a deformed feeling of-” you can still feel it, underneath the disgust and the milk and the honey, “- _freedom_.”

The moon, the cold, the concrete and pleasure, finally; greed and eyes- _this is_ _my_ _design._

“You were yourself,” Lecter moves closer and sits lightly on the corner of your bed, “but it was your nightmare, not you, that killed: remember this, Will. Your body, no; _your mind_ has been rebelling against the continuous invasions of other minds, other _thoughts,_ for months. Tonight, it _exploded_. Your mind was only trying to regain its own identity and-”

“I am a monster,” you interrupt him, and you are so calm that it is strange to feel a tear crossing your cheek with a wet path, “I am a monster.”

“No, Will; whoever leaves you to dream alone is a monster.”

Doctor Lecter's smile is made of thin lips and hard angles, but it is the most authentic you have ever seen.

He brushes your hand with his fingertips.

“You are real, this room is real; I am real. What happened tonight, even though it holds some _unpleasant_ consequences,” if you were more lucid this would trigger an alarm, your survival instinct would scream to run as far as possible from Hannibal Lecter, because no sane person would ever call the death of an innocent man an “unpleasant consequence”. Yet, now, everything you can hear are soothing words, warm with accent, “That was not real.”

You nod, as you start shrouding in some dark synapses your eyeless disgrace and the drying blood on your hand.

There are no police, no corpses to be hidden anymore.

Your bedroom is real, you are real – not some monster under the moon, that would be senseless – and Doctor Lecter is real.

_And that's it._

Everything will be fine, in this restricted world of soft, artificial lights.

“Now you should rest: it is still night and you really need it. I will now turn off the lights. But I can assure you I will stay here all the time in case you required something, Will.”

Really, Doctor Lecter should be always smiling, because when he is everything is right, and real.

Your heart, for the first time in hours, feels light and steady.

You'd like to thank him, but you're so weak and tired that only thing you manage to whisper is:

“You do say 'Will' a lot, you know?”

– _for a split second, you accidentally slip into his dark gaze and you can see with his eyes; you are watching yourself, broken and pale and content on an unmade bed of sweat and you think “You should always give names to your pets: they will think you love them, and you will have something to bind them to you when they try to run away-”; but then you tumble down and those thoughts fade into nothing, you can't catch them –_

His smile subtly twitches with something that could be fondness and then the lights are turned off.

“Goodnight, Will.”

 

You find peace losing your gaze in the darkness and listening to your silent guardian's rhythmic breath; you close your eyes and let yourself sink into a deep sleep of stillness, while outside the sun is rising.

In your dreams, honey and a crow– a crow sheltering you with black feathered wings, a crow with Doctor Lecter's eyes and a voice dripping with accent.

 

_You will never know that the biggest mistake you made that night wasn't killing a man, but finding that dream comforting._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal "oh, murder? lolz wu carez" Lecter has started moving his pawns and dear Will doesn't suspect a thing, of course. This chapter was rather static, but I swear that in the next one there will be some movement.
> 
> Something tells me that this chapter is full of mistakes, so, if you notice any, please, let me know! Unfortunately, the person that proposed to beta this story hasn't answered yet, so I know it's quite a mess.


End file.
